The present invention relates to the field of electromagnetic delay lines, and more specifically relates to an electromagnetic delay line system which is variable, which can switchably output a plurality of signals with different delay times from a single input signal, and which can vary the differences between the delay times of said output signals.
Conventionally, in order to provide such a variable type of delay line system, it has, for instance, been practiced to input the input signal into a first signal line and also into a second signal line having a variable delay line, and to selectively produce signals with different delay times by selectively switching between the first and the second signal lines, while the difference between the delay times of the output signals is made variable by varying the delay time of the variable delay line.
However, according to such a prior art type variable delay line system, the difference between the delay times of the output signals can be adjusted only to the extent of the variability of the variable delay line. It a large delay time difference is required to be obtained by such adjustment, it is necessary to use a variable delay line which has a large maximum delay time, and therefore the variable delay line system tends to become large in size and costly.